The Rt 66 Mother Road Festival - Springfield

 Every year Springfield, MO hosts the Rt 66 Mother Road Festival. Our caravan happened to be in town for the event. As this is the 100th anniversary of Rt 66, the festival was planned to be even better than previous years. We did not attend the evening concerts, but we did go into town to view some of the 1,498 cars at the car show.  The center of town was blocked off to traffic and cars were parked along the sides of the streets on at least a dozen blocks. 

Check out the Matchbox Car on the air filter!

I HAD to take a photo of this car. 

Check out the 'badge'!

While we were in Springfield our group was camped at the Double J Campground in nearby Chatham. This was a clean, flat campground with great gravel roads and sites. There was a fun walking trail through woods and weeds. The girls enjoyed the curving trail, and loved coming upon a bunny that seemed to find a way to run through the weeds and miraculously show up on the next section of our trail! Here are a few shots of "the weeds":

The campground is next to a corn field. At our last campground we saw tall cornstalks one day, and the next they were gone. The harvesters had come in and worked through the night. In case you have never had the opportunity to stand next to a corn field, I took this shot so you can see that the corn really is as high as an elephant's eye! 

A Lincoln Kinda Day

Our tour took us around Springfield, Illinois. This was President Lincoln's home when he first became a lawyer and entered into politics.

Our first stop was the Lincoln Museum and Library. I thought it was excellent. You enter into a large open space,  a rotunda. On one side there is a log cabin, with the figure of Abe sitting on a stump with a book in his hand.

 

Visitors "journey" through the cabin, which replicates the size of the one-room 

cabins that Lincoln grew up in, and then on through several displays depicting

Lincoln's pre-presidential years. Many of the exhibits use full-size models of Lincoln, 

family members, and others depicting this part of Lincoln's story. 

(Evidently Lincoln had strong feelings for freedom children should have from overbearing parents, and let his boys run wild when they visited his office!)

On the other side of the 'rotunda' are figures of Lincoln and his family in front of the White House.

The "journey" in this exhibit focuses on the presidential years.  

Unfortunately, I did not have time to visit this gallery.

In addition, there is a changing exhibit of art and there are two holographic presentations 

that I found to be very engaging. Oh, and it wouldn't be a museum without a gift shop!

We visited Lincoln's home in Springfield. 

When he first moved to Springfield and began to practice law 

he bought this house. At that time it was only a 1-story home.

As the Lincoln family grew, the second floor was added.

Much of the house is as it was in Lincoln's day,

with many of the original items still on exhibit. 

Lincoln and Mary intended to return to the house following Lincoln's term.

From there we moved on to Lincoln's tomb.

It is beautiful.

Bronze statues depicting Lincoln,

and the armed forces stand out on the white granite. 

Lincoln lies at rest below this red granite marker.

His family is interred within the tomb as well,

with the exception of his youngest, and longest surviving son 

who is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

And of course, a visit to the monument is not complete unless one rubs

the nose of this Lincoln head to bring good luck! 

 

On to Pontiac...Illinois

We visited Pontiac, IL

We had a brief trolley tour around the city to see some historic sites and to learn about some of the murals. 

There are 24 murals depicting the history of Pontiac. 

Bob Waldmire painted this map mural in the Rt 66 museum in Pontiac.

He painted murals in many locations on Rt 66.

This map was never finished. Bob died before he could finish painting the truck,

which you can see penciled in between the print of the grain elevator and Towanda.

Here are a few other murals around town: 

In addition to the murals, the town has cute cars and trucks along many sidewalks.

These were the result of an art collaboration. 

Pontiac constructed an open air plaza in mid town. 

The sign was created to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Rt 66.

It was made to look like signs of yore.

As we left Pontiac we stopped at few gas stations

that once served customers on the mother road. 

 

Ground Zero - Rt 66

 The start of Rt 66 

Our group at the Navy Pier in Chicago

This isn't really where Rt 66 began, historically,

but there was a suggestion that Rt 66 should go from Pier to Pier.

We enjoyed Chicago Style Pizza at Lou Malnati's..

home to the BEST* deep dish pizza in Chicago! 

*so they claim!

The next day we were at Lou Mitchells,

A famed breakfast venue at the terminus of Rt 66. 

Our group took up quite a bit of space! 

We had our pick of quite a few variations of omelettes...

My ham a cheese was rather tame. 

We took an architecture tour by water and learned about many of the buildings in Chicago

Chicago skyline 

My favorite building was the St Regis, designed by Jeanne Gang.

This is the tallest building in the world designed by a woman. 

One bedroom condos in the building begin at $950,000!

The black band near the top of the highest tower is open to the elements.

This allows wind to flow through the building.

That, and huge tanks of water on the floors above help mitigate swaying of the building. 

We traveled to the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower)

This is Chicago from 1,353 feet!

And this is me on "The Ledge"! 

Of course, we had to stop and see "the Bean"

(Formally known as Cloud Gate)

Can you find my reflection in the bean?

My favorite thing at Millennium Park was the Crown Fountain.

We waited...

and waited...

and finally: